How to Make Fire Starters

Whether you’re a candle maker looking for a way to make good use of wick remnants & wax, or you’re a candle-burning fan who wants to use up that last bit of candle, we’re here to show you how to make fire starters and how easy it is! If you’re a candle maker, and always have these types of ingredients on hand and can make them with some regularity, these are an easy up-sell with minimal efforts. Customers love to share them with friends who love to cozy up to their fireplace, a bonfire or campfire. And although people may often think of these first for winter, they really are useful all year long.

What you’ll need for making your fire starters

The true basic items are wax, wicks, paper muffin liners (which will contain your other fire starting materials) and a muffin tin to help hold the shape until they’re cooled. You could use other items as containers. We’ve seen sections of the pressed paper egg trays or cartons used as well. You could even roll cones of kraft paper. It really depends on how concerned you are with the aesthetics and the consistency of your end products. Remember…the idea here is to use up remnants. These aren’t instructions for candle making.

The items you choose to place into these fire starters, along with their shape will determine their vibe…so you could easily give them a woodsy campfire ambience, a cozy kitchen hearth feel, or even a clean modern-art fireplace overtones. *Avoid items that are treated in any way that would impact the safety of the burn. Only use items that are will fully burn. Be sure to remove any metal tabs if rescuing wicks you are no longer using.

Additional & Optional Items:

• wood shavings or slivers
• Rosemary sprigs
• Dried Citrus peels
• long evergreen needles
• dried seed pods (untreated)
• whole cloves
• cinnamon sticks
• small pine cones
• Twigs
• Ink-free paper
• Natural loofah

If you are trying to calculate how much wax you are using in order to figure out your pricing structure, you will want to weigh your wax for tracking, and record any other items that you wish to count in your cost. Generally, the more solid items you have in your fire starters, the less wax they will hold. Some items may absorb wax more than others, so you may want to do some testing to get more accurate costing.

Tips on Placing Items in your Fire Starters

You may wish to double up on the cupcake liners in case any wax gets between the liner and the tin. It’s easier to pull the liner out, and you’ll have less mess. You may want to have a tin set aside for this, along with you fillers so that you can easily make them on the fly. Depending on your work flow and the accuracy of your main pour calculations, you may want to have the dry ingredients set ahead of time, and just add the wicks and the wax as you have it.

Place the more dense items and less attractive fillers in the bottom. Add the more interesting things toward the top. If you have things like shaggy pine cones, cotton twine or cups with the pointed taller corners, you wouldn’t have to include a wick. While you can plan to make these to sell, part of the idea is to use remnants and items that may go to waste. Keep the trimmings from your candle wicks and wedge on in between the slats of a pine cone to keep it in place. As you add items, consider wedging them tightly enough to keep them from moving when you add the wax.

Once they are cooled, package them as you please!

If you aren’t a candle maker, but want the supplies to make these, you can browse our candle making supplies. We do have smaller sizes of wax for testing, but the most economical is to get it by the case.